Merry Christmas from Businessolver!

From our family to yours, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

May you enjoy the company of loved ones, take some time to relax and enjoy your accomplishments

and realize the important things in life as you plan for the new year! 

 

Happy Holidays from Businessolver!

 

 

 

Regards,

 

Jim Gallic | businessolver | North East Sales Executive | office 908.360.1500 | mobile 908.303.0454 | email jgallic@businessolver.com

 

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"Benefit managers have an amazing opportunity to help solve some of our country’s biggest problems. You're doing this with fewer resources, your team might be a third of the size that it once was and your budgets have been slashed. 

 

The most important step is to move to an online benefit enrollment platform. When you have a website, you can make things funny, you can make them quirky and the possibilities are endless. It's the most important investment you can make in your benefits because 30% of compensation spending comes from benefits. " - Jennifer Benz, Benz Communications

 

How to find the next rabbit for 2012-2013's plans

The early numbers are in from Mercer and they don't look good. Mark Roberts at BenefitsPro has a great write up on the initial study.

The short version of Mark's article is this: Health care costs are expected to rise 5.4% next year. Brokers and Consultants who just finished up their Open Enrollment periods are already finding themselves having to prepare for another tough season. His closing comment provides this bit of ironic encouragement "Do your best to keep up."

Are they any rabbits left?

For many brokers and consultants, they are been able to pull a "rabbit out of a hat" for the past few years by utilizing plan changes and installing CDHP plans. As I heard from a botique NYC based broker last week, most advisers are running out of options.

Plan adjustments impact both employers and employees alike. Neither party are in a position to shoulder any more of the premium burden. Healthcare exchanges are still too immature to be a viable option for 2012-2013 but may be in play for 2014. 

Need to Communicate

One of the other challenges brought on by creating more complex plan structures is the need for communication. Multiple Plan options along with the introduction of new plan structures (HRA/HSA/FSA/Limited FSA) creates an need for clear and concise education of the employee.

The Midwest Business Group on Health just released their white paper entitled "Employee Health Engagement:Identifying the Triggers and Barriers to Engaging Employees in Their Health Benefits and Wellness Programs". While you may not have the time to read through the entire report (highly recommended), the salient points were summed up by their team.

The research provides employers with key recommendations to supporting employee engagement and health improvement efforts including:

• Take into account a company's culture when implementing workplace health and benefit programs. Have strategies in place that build trust – a big influence on employee participation.
• Include dependents and other family members in company communication efforts so they can support health improvement and behavior change efforts at home and in their daily lives.
• Offer "Benefits-at-a-Glance" resources that include information such as cost comparisons among plans, the actual cost of health services, and benefit/coverage changes that could have an impact on out-of-pocket costs. 
• Use the results of clinical screening programs and campaigns such as Know Your Numbers as the trigger to get employees to consider making necessary lifestyle changes.
• Structure incentives as part of the benefit design to maximize the employer's investment in these resources and to promote value to the employee.
• Provide information and resources on resiliency/stress management to help employees handle the extremes of a hectic work and home life.

Source: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/29/4086653/mbgh-releases-employer-recommendations.html#ixzz1ffiAuhcM

It is clear that the need to communicate and engage your workforce needs education and engagement in order to be able to understand and utilize the benefit plans being offered.

What Can You Do?

The best time to act on your communication is right now. Open enrollment has just finished (hopefully!) and the memories of the good and bad are fresh. 

New Rules Require Better Communication

At a recent WEB meeting (www.webnetwork.org), there were heated discussions around the new Summary of Benefits and Coverage requirements. For those who are unfamiliar with the issue, new regulations were established by the healthcare law signed by President Obama and federal representatives from the House and Senate. One of the regulations requires proper disclosure of all health care plan designs. No, I am not talking about the already enacted SPDs (Summary Plan Descriptions) that are in place today.

This document will be in addition to the plan documents and SPDs. The new requirement is for a summary of the summary, no more than 8 pages with a font size of 12. They didn't mention anything about any requirements for the size of any pictures or graphs. To make matters worse, the fines imposed are fairly substantial and the deadline is looming large (March 23rd, 2012).

Of course, the rules and deadlines may be changed, and this part of the PPACCA may not go into effect until later this year but one thing is very clear. The government is not happy with the delivery of plan designs and specifics and are not going to tolerate it any more. They want clear communications and they want it now!

For most of us, reading through a summary of plan design for a major medical insurance plan is a guarantee cure for insomnia. But the minute that we have a pressing medical need and the plan's narrow ruling of an interpretation of a questionable procedure, we instantly become an ERISA lawyer.

As Americans, we don't like to be told no or denied coverage for every single possible coverage. We don't understand that the decision makers were forced to decided between cutting employees or benefit coverage. We just want our medical claim covered with little or no hassle.

So how do we balance between employees' limited attention span and legal requirements to explain coverage details? I would recommend applying the following four concepts.

1. Put the I in plan language = PLAIN Language - The majority of your workforce are not going to be students of the benefit plans or have a long attention span. Remove the industry terms and overcomplicated words. Focus on short, simple sentences that convey only one idea.  
2. Second Opinions Matter - Writing clearly is not usually something that can be done in one attempt. What appears to the writer as perfectly understandable is often confusing to the reader without context. Ensure that your message is understood by everyone by asking others to review your work. It is very helpful to involve someone who is unfamiliar with you and the subject. You will achieve success if they are able to comprehend the message. 
3. The Oscar goes to ... - Whenever possible, tell a story. People love to hear stories. They relate to and remember stories. Even the most boring of subjects come alive when woven into a powerful and engaging story. 
4. Mixed Messages - Everyone has their preferred learning style. Some prefer to listen to instructions, some read from cover to cover absorbing all the details and others would prefer to watch a video. Your benefits package is one the key drivers of retention and attraction for talent. Don't let your employees make poor assumptions because they only have one option to consume the information. Variety is the spice of life (and benefits). Ensure that you provide as many different ways to communicate the value of the benefits being offered and how they help employees and their loved ones. Have fun with it and try something new. For a great example, check out Jellyvision (www.jellyvision.com)

At the end of the day, your benefits program is an excellent tool. Don't relegate it to the land of legal. Make it a foundation of the total compensation package available to your workforce. 

To learn more about how Businessolver can help you communicate available benefits more effectively with your employees, please contact me at jgallic@businessolver.com or (908) 360-1500.

Businessolver is an elite provider of benefits administration services to organizations with 2,000 - 200,000+ employees. Learn more at www.businesolver.com